He didn't say he'd hire zero lobbyists. He said he wouldn't hire a lot of lobbyists. As in, of the field of lobbyists, most would not be getting a job offer in the Obama administration. Depending on how many positions there are to fill, he could hire 100% lobbyists and still fail to hire the vast majority of them.

He didn't say he'd hire zero lobbyists. He said he wouldn't hire a lot of lobbyists.

Weaselese...

As in, of the field of lobbyists, most would not be getting a job offer in the Obama administration.

Meaningless. There are tens of thousands of lobbyists in the US. Even if Obama staffed (stuffed?) his White House only with lobbyists, most of the the lobbyists would not have a job offer from him.

Here is [nytimes.com], what he declared on the first day in the office though — already a change of tone from the election campaign:

In what ethics-in-government advocates described as a particularly far-reaching move, Mr. Obama barred officials of his administration from lobbying their former colleagues "for as long as I am president." He barred former lobbyists from working for agencies they had lobbied within the past two years and required them to recuse themselves from issues they had handled during that time.

That policy was immediately violated:

Mr. Obama's nominee for deputy secretary of defense, William Lynn, has been a lobbyist for the defense contractor Raytheon, and his nominee for deputy secretary of health and human services, William V. Corr, lobbied for stricter tobacco regulations as an official with the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

It would've all been fine, of course — the President is entitled to pick anyone for his Administration (save for a few posts, which must be approved by Congress), but his pre-election grandstanding is now hurting him — despite your and yours best efforts.

Come on man, that guy driving the Toyota was as likely as not lying about it. In any case Toyota doesn't seem to be a significant donor [opensecrets.org]. Neither is Google, which may be part of the problem. Microsoft, on the other hand, is, along with Raytheon.

Without a doubt, it would be very difficult to put someone into a position like CIO without the person having had much in the way of experience with large and successful companies. If they selected someone that was not of that sort, they would be asking some other very serious questions like "what makes you qualified for this position?"

And having seen that exact effect with FEMA, this really is a catch-22 situation. They have to hire someone qualified (with a proven track record) whose never worked for anyone before. That might be a problem.

Right, he might just be in Canada's or Britain's pocket instead. The national CTO might be involved in some national security issues like cyberwarfare, right? Do you really want foreign nationals in sensitive appointed positions? (I say this as a child of an immigrant).

Also keep in mind that public service positions pay comparatively poorly. This guy doesn't want to be a life-long civil servant, he either wants to get out and retire after Obama leaves office, or he wants to return to the private sector

Without a doubt, it would be very difficult to put someone into a position like CIO without the person having had much in the way of experience with large and successful companies. If they selected someone that was not of that sort, they would be asking some other very serious questions like "what makes you qualified for this position?"

This argument might have merit except that he was employed by Google as a lobbyist. He will be aware of new technologies, but only those developed by Google.

Define "real job". I can't think of any recent Presidents who have had a "real job". The last one would probably have been Carter, who actually "worked" for Admiral Zumwalt, and helped to make the nuclear powered Navy what it is today. Please don't point at Reagan - acting isn't a "real job". Maybe Ford - I don't know enough about him to say for sure, and I'm to lazy to google his biography. And, whatever you do, DO NOT point at the junior Bush. All that fool ever did was to bankrupt companies that hi

To me, "real jobs" do not include politics and acting. I mean, productive jobs, jobs that support productive jobs, research, service work of some sort, you know, people that "do things". At best, a governor merely orchestrates all the busybodies who want to know what everyone else is doing, and how to control and exert power over them.

George HW Bush was director of the CIA - yes, I forgot that. That is a "real job". Not quite a "real job" as in "common people do that sort of thing", but it is a "real jo

Go on, I challenge you to name any presidents to have actually worked their way from the bottome, where most of us live, up to the top.

Reagan; your saying otherwise doesn't make it so.CarterFord (born to a wealthy father who did not raise him, served in the navy during WWII)Nixon (though he started in law, which you might not count)Eisenhower

Obama was political from almost day one, as was LBJ, and the Bushes and Kennedy were born to money.

Bush 41 was a bomber pilot in World War II. He was also relatively successful as an oil man, although his father's connections certainly helped out.

Go on, I challenge you to name any presidents to have actually worked their way from the bottome, where most of us live, up to the top. Kennedy might qualify, but his daddy was a criminal with lots of money.

??? Kennedy doesn't qualify as someone that worked his way up from the bottom. He was born every bit as wealthy as George W Bush was.

Reagan worked himself up from nothing. Clinton worked himself up from nothing. Obama, arguably, worked himself up from nothing (although he apparently got a lot of help from "Fellow Travelers"). But Kennedy sure as hell didn't

Come on man, that guy driving the Toyota was as likely as not lying about it. In any case Toyota doesn't seem to be a significant donor. Neither is Google, which may be part of the problem. Microsoft, on the other hand, is, along with Raytheon.

There is absolutely no reason that a company should be allowed to donate to a politician's political campaign or the government. Taxes are one thing but donations make obvious strings

There's actually a corporate policy that prevents me from naming my employer publicly (LOL) but they shamelessly and regularly plug their PAC via company e-mail trying to raise donations. But frankly what's in the best interest of any large corporate is rarely in the best interest of the consumer; most c

Perhaps you should actually read the article before you link to it. A public relations firm announced they are running for office, true. Also true is that it is part of a publicity stunt to A) call attention to the potential implications of corporations gaining personhood from Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, and B) raise their own public image as an effective PR firm. No one created a ruling - whatever that means - and quite probably, no one is going to allow Murray Hill, Inc. to run for the House, no matter how hilarious it might be.

It wouldn't make a difference. If companies couldn't donate to campaigns, wealthy individuals would take their place. There's always someone with a purse who is willing to influence government. As far as direct donations go, the campaign donations from individual companies are not that huge. If a thousand or so blue collar workers got together to form an organization, they could easily out-donate the biggest donor to Mr Issa, which this year was $17,000 [opensecrets.org]. That would only be $17 each, very doable.

Complaining about corporate donations is really just a complaint about lack of citizen participation. The fact is, in a democracy, if the citizens don't pay attention, the people who are paying attention will get what they want. This is what's happened in America.

"If companies couldn't donate to campaigns, wealthy individuals would take their place. There's always someone with a purse who is willing to influence government."

In many countries that isn't true. Hell McCain and Obama supported a bill pushing 'clean elections' where you aren't allowed to accept campaign donations and instead the government gives you a set allowance. So it isn't impossible to change or anything.

It doesn't really matter. If people don't pay attention, the election system doesn't matter, there will always be a way for powerful people to manipulate. That's why it's important for people to pay attention to what's going on.

A government given allowance has problems too: the leading political parties have too much motivation to make it hard for a third party to get funding, for example. It just moves the power center from one place to another.

Um, sure, Obama supported the bill, right before he pulled out of public campaign financing when he realized he had a corporate fund raising juggernaught that smashed all fund raising efforts.

I'm incredulous that the same folks that have problems with corporations making campaign contributions don't see ANY problem with having the government (!) completely control the purse strings for elections. Because the government is full of civic minded, responsible, hard working individuals that would never abuse th

The fact is, in a democracy, if the citizens don't pay enough, the people who are paying more will get what they want.

Fixed that for you. What you're essentially saying is that the solution to corporate interests influencing government is to out-bribe them. That the people need to pay the government to represent them, where that should be the government's whole purpose.

And while it wouldn't be too hard for a small-ish gathering of workers to raise $17,000, raising the half a million [opensecrets.org] that SAIC donated in total to all the candidates it was bribing in 2010 would require $50,000 each - more than their total annual income, I'd

Sure, but if you have half a million people, that million dollars becomes easy to deal with as well. The half a million actually has more power, because in a democracy votes count more than money. The money is only useful to the degree it can buy votes.

The bottom line is this: the people who don't pay attention are going to be manipulated by those who are. If we want a fair system, everyone has to pay attention. Those who don't, lose. (I'm not trying to say how I want it to be, I'm just describing ho

What you're essentially saying is that the solution to corporate interests influencing government is to out-bribe them.

No the solution is to out-vote them. As long as there is full transparency, I don't have a problem with Senator X getting $50,000 in campaign contributions from EvilCorp PAC, as long as that information is public. Then you know when Senator X votes in favor of a windfall for EvilCorp.

Fundamentally, the problem is lack of citizen involvement at all levels of the political process. Not enough people that "care" about good governance get involved in the party process by participating in campaigns, and even

If companies couldn't donate to campaigns, wealthy individuals would take their place.

That was actually another little-noticed effect of Citizens United. The fetters are now off of wealthy individuals as well as companies, as long as they aren't giving directly to parties or campaigns. But there are no realy limits on what their "independent" groups can say or when they can say it. So effectively they can run a shadow campaign with all the anonomous money from any source they desire. It doesn't even have to be money earned in the USA...

Once again, I'm going to say that it really doesn't matter. You can set up any sort of electoral system, and as long as people aren't paying attention, I can find a way to manipulate it, given enough resources. Fox 'News' is one easy example. Someone said, "democracy gives people the government they deserve" and if people vote more for American Idol than for president, it's hard to convincingly argue they deserve anything other than a corrupt, incompetent government.

How is "Fox 'News'" one easy example, but MSNBC not? The "News" is NOT some vaunted Fourth Estate like it pretends to be. It is a business that caters to a market. Fox News caters to a market that was grossly under served by the mainstream news shows for 3 decades as they (the MSM) dispensed with all vestiges of impartiality and began wearing their left-wing ideologies on their sleeves. Fox News is no better or worse, in that regard, to CBS or MSNBC. They are just on the other side of the spectrum.

I have no problem with a rich man in my voting district contributing to a campaign. I do have something against bribery, which is what a donation to more than one candidate in a race is, and this should be illegal. I also have a problem with somone who isn't eligible to vote in my district contributing to candidates who are supposed to represent ME.

I'm as much against my union being able to donate as I am the company I work for, even though the union's donations are in my own interest.

> There is only one real solution. Don't give any part of government or politicians too much power over too large a portion of the nation.

Then they can just take the power they want through non-governmental channels. Where there are no chiefs, you need to have a very special environment indeed, or people will start making themselves into chiefs with tooth and nail.

Almost always, the most money makes its way to the most viable candidates. Your "solution" is a recipe for removing everyone but self-financed candidates, because I sure as heck would not donate money to a pool of candidates, only one of which I may support.

The way out would to be public funding.
Then make any gifts to a politician a criminal, police matter.
Great for grass roots democracy as any local issue at a state or federal level would have the same weight as the military industrial complex lobby.
Arms dealers, oil, drug laundering, military contractors, software providers and big pharma would move to safer parts of the world where trading in the dark is welcomed.
The problem with a clean up like that is a fiat currency, pensions and savings would be w

People always claim that if such-and-such would happen, 'x would move'. Or 'capital would flee; Well, sure, if you only change one thing, in your quest to reform the world. The reason the pro-corporate faction is always "Rah, rah free trade" is exactly so they have that option. to hold no allegiance to any country, and to flee if the People get uppity. If, at the same time you enact your other reforms, you reenact the capital controls that used to exist and you embargo trade with any corporation that pul

Lots of countries have done this and haven't been doomed. The US is far LESS likely to be affected than european countries. The US is the largest economy they can't just abandon the place totally. Plus it is easier to abandon European countries, physically more options around.

You know its funny how outraged people get over appointments. Guess what. Each party has its set of 'experts'. Many have been around for 20-60 years in various positions in the government and private industry. When their party is out of favor they get cushy jobs at some company and wait for the tide to come back around.

These dudes are professional politicians.

When the republican party is back in favor (and it will be) they will trot out their group of experts to fill all those positions. Just as the Democrats have done in the past year or two.

What do people honestly think these guys do while they are not in some sort of official office? They are helping some company weave its way thru the corridors of power. They are helping write up bills that they can give to their buddies in congress to get passed.

I think it is funny that people are actually shocked that this is going on. The American government is about favors. Not about actually helping anyone... That gigantic healthcare bill that just passed? You dont think it was 1200 pages just because it was that hard to do? No. I would be large portions of it is little 'I will vote for it if you put my pet project in' type things. The reason you didnt see any republicans voting for it was because the Democrats didnt want to owe any favors to them, not because they were actually listening to their constituents. Just as the republicans did in 2001 with the tax bill.

The American government is about favors. Not about actually helping anyone... That gigantic healthcare bill that just passed? You dont think it was 1200 pages just because it was that hard to do? No. I would be large portions of it is little 'I will vote for it if you put my pet project in' type things.

Not shocked, but bothered. I would like to see the influence of lobbyists sharply curtailed, as a general part of reform in how elections are run. I'll grumble at anyone, regardless of party, when my grumbling might help.

That said, the healthcare bill is not actually private, and as far as I can tell any favours in it are not blatant.

Exactly, we didn't have these arguments in the Bush years because Cheney ruled the party with an Iron Fist. Republicans that spoke out were replaced... even Democrats that spoke out had their districts targeted for Republican PR during elections. Bush enjoyed a majority in both houses for 6 years... and used flag waving/soft on terrorist to constantly push a few Democrats to their side simply because they weren't going to win, and why burn the bridges.

Let's be fair. The Bush administration got raked over the coals (rightly so) for using private webmail accounts to keep a lot of internal discussions off of public records. That's a big no-no. The Obama administration doing it is no more right than any other administration doing it. Keep the personal email for personal use. But it shouldn't be used for government business. Chances of him not using it at all for business related to his position within the Obama administration: Probably greater than 50% is what I'm guessing. If he's got nothing to hide, he should let a private auditor go over his gmail account to ensure that nothing government business related is on the gmail account, and if there is anything there government business related, he should disclose this and make those emails part of the White House document chain.

No doubt, but from the description, there doesn't really seem to be any indication that he's done anything bad.

It reads more like grand-standing by some random Republican trying to smear by insinuation ("the Bush administration intentionally used private email accounts to bypass public accountability laws... therefore if someone in the Obama administration merely has a private email account, they must be doing the same thing!").

There is a difference between having a private email account and using it to avoid the scrutiny of the public eye when doing business as a representative of the people of the United States of America. If he has nothing to hide as a representative of the people, have a private audit conducted to determine if there is anything that would need to be entered into the public log on his private email. That way if he has nothing that needs to be documented, then his personal email isn't aired out like dirty laun

'The American people have a right to expect that White House employees are working to advance the public interest and not the interests of the lobby shops who formerly employed them,' Issa noted in the letter.

That's the funniest thing I've read all week. Is he serious? As other posters have noted, he has ties to lobbyists from other industries.

Glass House, Issa.

We really need sane contribution laws here in the US. Like, contributions from corporations are flat out illegal.

WTF? The fuss makes no sense for a number of reasons:
1) A former high-level Google official has emailed other high-level Google officials through his Gmail account, and is probably friends with them.
2) High-level Google officials will be interested to see what the CTO of the Executive Branch is up to, no matter who that CTO is.
3) This needs to be kept an eye on, but is not indicative of endemic corruption by any stretch. Get a grip, folks!

It's Google Buzz. It isn't that huge from what I'm seeing. It makes sense that current and former google employees are using google buzz. The closest I've come is noticing that there is a new icon when I check my gmail.

if, after the lengthy political and legal fight that would finally expose his google buzz messages to american officials, chinese officials, via their google hackers, would have already probably read them a long time ago

employees/lobbyists routinely accept jobs in the US Government and influence laws and do all kinds of other evil acts to benefit their former employers and when they "retire" they get re-hired back with huge bonuses. Funny that...

Not saying Google is doing the same but it never hurts to double check...

a GOP senator questions a guy that has formerly worked in google, in regard to 'lobbyism'.

how many people from lobbies were employed by gop administration in the past 8 years ? how the fuck these people can have the guts to exercise hypocrisy and doublespeak to THAT extent and you people dont do anything ?

"Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is pressing White House Deputy Chief Technology Officer Andrew McLaughlin to explain his relationship with his former employer, Google.

The congressman, who serves as ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, said McLaughlin's account on Google's new Buzz social network suggests he remains in touch with "more than two dozen individuals currently employed by Google, Inc., including a number of senior lobbyists and lawyers."

On the contrary, doing that in a public, official way IS making such an accusation. Reporting it in this way is a means of making the current administration look corrupt. The entire thing is most likely going to come to naught (but hey, if it turns out the guy is dirty, great), but any time it can be stuck into the back of people's minds that "Obama is corrupt", there are many people who will attempt to do so. If there is nothing to it, nobody will ever hear about it again anyway.

This is not new, nor is it unique to Obama. For some reason people seem much more eager to jump on any potential issue, no matter how trivial, with him than most, but the principle is the same.

Of course a large number of people want to stick it to him -- and far beyond any other partisan or previous personal prejudice... He is black. Millions of people are still far too ignorant and prejudiced to give him the due criticism that has been applied to every white president before him for the usual reasons.

I've seen nothing to credibly indicate that it is particularly corrupt. Corruption is nearly universal to social constructs, including governments, businesses, clubs, schools, consortiums, and even informal groups of friends... it is, in some form, almost omnipresent. The question isn't whether or not the current administration is corrupt, it is to what extent it is corrupt, and to what extent it is more or less corrupt than others. In my opinion, there is insufficient credible evidence to conclude that it is notably more corrupt than other presidential administrations I can recall. This is not even remotely the same thing as concluding that there is no corruption.

"2) The political news media types jump on any potential issue, no matter how trivial, and no matter who it's about, because scandal brings ratings"

Yes, that was pretty much what I said... How am I fooling myself again?

No, we need somebody from the "moral majority" action group to act as Federal CIO... preventing moral foibles and preventing federal offices from looking at "bad things" is much more important than somebody that was part of setting up one of the fastest growing companies in the US right now. That would be like appointing radio engineers or broadcast owners to the FCC... instead of a lobby for "moral content". (Oh wait... that was the last guy)

You mean like Bush/Cheney advocated in their administration? It was a matter of "official" unwritten policy that much of the behind the scenes work was "off the books". The guys in the White House now are kids compared to the last administration with many non-elected "administrators" that served every republican since Nixon.

The sad thing is people don't expect this at all. They hope for it, but they certainly (mostly) know better than to expect it. Obama's brand of change is no different than the brand of change pushed by any politician who's ever promised "change." The only difference is more people are willingly allowing the proverbial wool to be pulled over their eyes.

Not only is this President putting out scripts just like the last President (and quite honestly, every President since before FDR), but a good chunk of the press not only prints it, but eats it up. I've never seen as much press love for a President as I've seen with the current one. The same people that are supposed to help hold the government accountable and keep them at least semi-honest are really just reporting what the talking heads are saying. You want to talk about the media questioning anything.

Dude, I don't have to believe anything. I was alive and had good vision and hearing tests over the last 8 years. Love him or hate him, but the Bush Administration, for at least the last 5-6 years of his stay in office, was all over the news, and most of it was highly inflammatory. Or do you just get all of your news from WhiteHouse.gov?

Considering what he did, the news were extremely favorable. Before Bush, no one would have thought you could thump your chest about doing torture (after first denying it), invade foreign countries on trumped-up charges, and purge the legislative branch of people suspected of being insufficiently supportive, without getting impeached.

Sadly, there are many people who think of them as an honest unbiased source of news. I think of them as a new age Benny Hill show. Funny to watch, grows old after a while, but added absolutely nothing of value to my life.

Not only is this President putting out scripts just like the last President (and quite honestly, every President since before FDR), but a good chunk of the press not only prints it, but eats it up. I've never seen as much press love for a President as I've seen with the current one.

Is that so hard to understand?

The press (along with the rest of us) endured 8 long years of a White House that considered the press an enemy, routinely refused to answer questions (speeches and press conferences were few and far

Where the fuck do I start? Let's see, the ramrodding of legislation that is grossly unpopular down our throats by the same people we elected, the favors and promises given to special interests directly opposite to the promises of the man who said he would not cater to special interests, the continued transfer of legal power from states to the federal government (which has slowly been occurring for the last 50 years or so), a plan in Afghanistan, the one conflict that has been just in the last decade, that

First off, the media was all over Bush for most of the 8 years. The boy didn't do a thing without people questioning his motives, for better or worse.

HUH??? The media didn't question why he let Bin Laden's relatives fly out of the US on 9-11 (except Michael Moore). They didn't question the Iraqi WMDs. The press went along with everything he did until Katrina, which was such a clusterfuck they HAD to jump him.

Obama's taken a lot of heat for his health care proposal. He's taken heat for not fixing the economy

They were doing the same thing then, they were just called fiscal conservatives. There wasn't any ratings in covering them. The marketing aspects of conservatives and liberals is as stark as marketing to blacks and caucasians and asians. They are different in their tastes, background, and life experiences. No one covered 3000 protesters complaining about Bush's spending because they weren't marketable. Now that they have a slogan, theme (tea party) that is catchy and marketable, they get coverage.